THE search has begun to find a new director for the “massive, massive role” of leading Barnard Castle’s arts centre, town councillors were told.
The £60,000 Durham County Council bail-out combined with £42,000 raised by the public appeal means The Witham now has enough cash to see it through until next March.
Trustee Jill Cole briefed members of Barnard Castle Town Council’s partnership committee on how The Witham had got into its current predicament and the next steps in securing its long term future.
She said the full scale of the situation was made clear at the first meeting of trustees she attended after joining the board in April.
Following an initial honeymoon period after The Witham reopened in 2013 after a £3.2million renovation, there had been “a slight naivety” about how secure funding might be in the future and an assumption that the Arts Council would continue giving grants, she said.
“A lot of money had gone into investing into the programming of The Witham to get it into a position as being recognised across the North East.
“The Witham is really highly regarded and I think you can’t undervalue that. But a lot of money has gone into investing into programming that was quite high brow without having an eye on how that impacted on core funding.”
Ms Cole said the board had no option but to reach out to the community for support.
In addition to the successful public appeal, another spin-off had been an increase in footfall to the cafe leading to a rise in revenue from the eatery.
She conceded efforts to attract private and corporate sponsorship had proved less successful.
“It took longer to get off the ground and it is a harder thing to do. We just don’t have the businesses which can afford to support other businesses in the town.”
However, she said The Witham had received “significant” support from GSK, both financially and with the offer of staff commitment via volunteer days – although no figures were revealed to councillors. Ms Cole said the final effort in ensuring The Witham could keep its doors open was to secure Durham County Council support.
“We had to put together a case to the local authority for a lump sum to get us through the cash flow crisis.
“The meeting was a bit like Dragon’s Den. Thank goodness we got £60,000.
“That’s what we needed to ensure that we could get through to next March.”
The board of trustees will now attempt to recruit a new director to take charge of the complex.
Gaye Kirby, head of development strategy at Durham Cathedral, had been announced as the new director in June, but she subsequently declined to take up the role.
Ms Cole said this had come as a blow as Ms Kirby would have been “perfect” for the job.
“It is a really challenging role,” added Ms Cole.
She said the new director would be need to be totally committed to The Witham.
“They will need to believe in it, oversee the finances, manage the budget, approach funders and write funding applications and oversee the cafe.
“It is a massive, massive role for a salary scale that is not commensurate.
“We have got until March our house in order.”
Ms Cole said Shelagh Avery, the current unpaid interim director, would not carry on in the role after Christmas at the latest, so it may be the case that The Witham would have to find another interim director until the search for a new boss was concluded.
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
